should consider a career in
professional comforting.”
10
93
They Almost Always Come Home
She coughs. So do I. Sympathy cough.
Certain sections of this portage are downright impossible. I stand on a fallen log that’s split open. Surveying the next twenty feet of the trail offers me no viable options. All I see is what appears to be a path made of ankle-deep mud. We’ll never know how deep unless we step into it, and I’m not vol- unteering. Conjoined trees on the left of the trail. Something that resembles moss but could be cleverly disguised quicksand to the right.
I’m grateful I let Jen lead.
She tiptoes along the left edge of the mud pit, hugging trees like a woman who suddenly thought better of the idea of jump- ing off the ledge of a tall building.
I don’t tiptoe well. The ooze into which I slide threatens to suck my hiking boots off my feet and take my socks with them. I spread my toes inside my boots and lumber out of the muck onto a stretch of trail that descends like steps with tree roots as treads.
So much for the hiking boots. We’re all of fifteen minutes into the wilderness, and I’ve ruined one of the two pairs of shoes I brought.
With the caking of mud, my feet seem as heavy as the load on my back. Because the mud on my shoes is as slick as that on the trail, my boots are like fresh-waxed skis on sheet ice. I have to be all the more cautious where I step.
“The rocks are our friends,” I chant. “The rocks are our friends.”
I lose Jen. She’s no doubt in the next province by now, as slowly as I’m taking the so-called path.
Marathon runners say they reach a point they call “the wall,” when their minds tell them they can’t go on, not another step. By my calculations, I hit three invisible walls on this first portage. As I emerge into the light and joy of the shoreline at
94
CYNTHIA RUCHTI
the edge of Beaverhouse Lake, I promise myself I won’t ask how many more of these portages we’ll face before the trip is over. I don’t really want to know.
“Frank, that was no half a mile,” I complain as I drop my
backpack on the shore near the two canoes and a breathless Jenika.
“Yeah. May have underestimated. Tell you what. I’ll make
the last trip back up the trail solo. I’ll haul the last of the equip- ment while you women recuperate.”
I’m drowning in the words “last trip solo.”
Jen answers for both of us. “Thanks, Frank. That’s big of
you. But I think there are two packs and a couple of hand- carried items still back there.”
“Don’t think I’m gonna go soft on you girls more than this
once,” he calls over his shoulder as he heads back into the northwoods version of the Trail of Tears.
Soft? I close my eyes. We just experienced the soft part of
this trip?
********
Most of the mud slips off my hiking boots when I wade into
the water. My assignment is to get the now-loaded canoe far enough from shore that it won’t drag on the rocky bottom once we push off. Jen’s in the back, steering, supposedly. Frank’s out on the water, halfway to the Atlantic Ocean. I’m working on getting into the canoe more gracefully than I emerged from the woods. Not to worry. I’ll have other chances.
“Don’t swamp us before we get a good start,” Jen chides.
Still maneuvering my body into the triangle reserved for
me, I glance back at the equipment crammed into the bottom of the canoe. Most of it shows mud or water-spot evidence that testifies to my lack of grace. I’m grateful the SAT phone is
95
They Almost Always Come Home
tucked in the waterproof bag. We can’t afford to let that thing get as soaked as I am.
“There’s a trick to this,” I say as I settle my bottom onto the canoe seat that’s only a hair more comfortable than aluminum bleachers. “I haven’t figured it out yet.”
Jen and I experiment with the wilderness equivalent of parallel parking. We’re backing the canoe out of the cove, turn- ing it around to face the
professional comforting.”
10
93
They Almost Always Come Home
She coughs. So do I. Sympathy cough.
Certain sections of this portage are downright impossible. I stand on a fallen log that’s split open. Surveying the next twenty feet of the trail offers me no viable options. All I see is what appears to be a path made of ankle-deep mud. We’ll never know how deep unless we step into it, and I’m not vol- unteering. Conjoined trees on the left of the trail. Something that resembles moss but could be cleverly disguised quicksand to the right.
I’m grateful I let Jen lead.
She tiptoes along the left edge of the mud pit, hugging trees like a woman who suddenly thought better of the idea of jump- ing off the ledge of a tall building.
I don’t tiptoe well. The ooze into which I slide threatens to suck my hiking boots off my feet and take my socks with them. I spread my toes inside my boots and lumber out of the muck onto a stretch of trail that descends like steps with tree roots as treads.
So much for the hiking boots. We’re all of fifteen minutes into the wilderness, and I’ve ruined one of the two pairs of shoes I brought.
With the caking of mud, my feet seem as heavy as the load on my back. Because the mud on my shoes is as slick as that on the trail, my boots are like fresh-waxed skis on sheet ice. I have to be all the more cautious where I step.
“The rocks are our friends,” I chant. “The rocks are our friends.”
I lose Jen. She’s no doubt in the next province by now, as slowly as I’m taking the so-called path.
Marathon runners say they reach a point they call “the wall,” when their minds tell them they can’t go on, not another step. By my calculations, I hit three invisible walls on this first portage. As I emerge into the light and joy of the shoreline at
94
CYNTHIA RUCHTI
the edge of Beaverhouse Lake, I promise myself I won’t ask how many more of these portages we’ll face before the trip is over. I don’t really want to know.
“Frank, that was no half a mile,” I complain as I drop my
backpack on the shore near the two canoes and a breathless Jenika.
“Yeah. May have underestimated. Tell you what. I’ll make
the last trip back up the trail solo. I’ll haul the last of the equip- ment while you women recuperate.”
I’m drowning in the words “last trip solo.”
Jen answers for both of us. “Thanks, Frank. That’s big of
you. But I think there are two packs and a couple of hand- carried items still back there.”
“Don’t think I’m gonna go soft on you girls more than this
once,” he calls over his shoulder as he heads back into the northwoods version of the Trail of Tears.
Soft? I close my eyes. We just experienced the soft part of
this trip?
********
Most of the mud slips off my hiking boots when I wade into
the water. My assignment is to get the now-loaded canoe far enough from shore that it won’t drag on the rocky bottom once we push off. Jen’s in the back, steering, supposedly. Frank’s out on the water, halfway to the Atlantic Ocean. I’m working on getting into the canoe more gracefully than I emerged from the woods. Not to worry. I’ll have other chances.
“Don’t swamp us before we get a good start,” Jen chides.
Still maneuvering my body into the triangle reserved for
me, I glance back at the equipment crammed into the bottom of the canoe. Most of it shows mud or water-spot evidence that testifies to my lack of grace. I’m grateful the SAT phone is
95
They Almost Always Come Home
tucked in the waterproof bag. We can’t afford to let that thing get as soaked as I am.
“There’s a trick to this,” I say as I settle my bottom onto the canoe seat that’s only a hair more comfortable than aluminum bleachers. “I haven’t figured it out yet.”
Jen and I experiment with the wilderness equivalent of parallel parking. We’re backing the canoe out of the cove, turn- ing it around to face the
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